'Shall light and shade, and warmth and air, With those exalted joys compare Which active virtue feels,
When on she drags, as lawful prize, Contempt, and Indolence, and Vice, At her triumphant wheels?
'As rest to labour still succeeds, To man, whilst virtue's glorious deeds Employ his toilsome day, This fair variety of things Are merely life's refreshing springs, To sooth him on his way.
'Enthusiast go, unstring thy lyre, In vain thou sing'st if none admire, How sweet soe'er the strain. And is not thy o'erflowing mind, Unless thou mixest with thy kind, Benevolent in vain?
'Enthusiast go, try every sense, If not thy bliss, thy excellence, Thou yet hast learned to scan; At least thy wants, thy weakness know, And see them all uniting show That man was made for man.'
FROM THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION [THE ESTHETIC AND MORAL INFLUENCE OF NATURE] Fruitless is the attempt,
By dull obedience and by creeping toil
Obscure, to conquer the severe ascent
Of high Parnassus. Nature's kindling breath Must fire the chosen genius; Nature's hand
Must string his nerves, and imp his eagle-wings, Impatient of the painful steep, to soar
High as the summit, there to breathe at large Ethereal air, with bards and sages old, Immortal sons of praise.
Even so did Nature's hand
To certain species of external things Attune the finer organs of the mind: So the glad impulse of congenial powers, Or of sweet sounds, or fair-proportioned form, The grace of motion, or the bloom of light, Thrills through imagination's tender frame, From nerve to nerve; all naked and alive They catch the spreading rays, till now the soul At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without Responsive.
What then is taste, but these internal powers Active, and strong, and feelingly alive To each fine impulse? a discerning sense Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust From things deformed, or disarranged, or gross In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold, Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow; But God alone, when first his active hand Imprints the secret bias of the soul. He, mighty parent wise and just in all, Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven, Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain Who journey's homeward from a summer day's Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween, His rude expression and untutored airs, Beyond the power of language, will unfold The form of beauty smiling at his heart- How lovely! how commanding!
Oh! blest of Heaven, whom not the languid songs Of Luxury, the siren! nor the bribes
Of sordid Wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils Of pageant Honour, can seduce to leave
Those ever-blooming sweets which, from the store Of Nature, fair Imagination culls
To charm th' enlivened soul! What though not all Of mortal offspring can attain the heights Of envied life, though only few possess Patrician treasures or imperial state; Yet Nature's care, to all her children just, With richer treasure and an ampler state, Endows at large whatever happy man
Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp; The rural honours his. Whate'er adorns The princely dome, the column and the arch, The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold, Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim, His tuneful breast enjoys. For him the Spring Distils her dews, and from the silken gem Its lucid leaves unfolds; for him the hand Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn. Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings; And still new beauties meet his lonely walk, And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain From all the tenants of the warbling shade Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake Fresh pleasure unreproved. Nor thence partakes Fresh pleasure only; for th' attentive mind, By this harmonious action on her powers, Becomes herself harmonious: wont so oft In outward things to meditate the charm Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home To find a kindred order, to exert Within herself this elegance of love,
This fair-inspired delight; her tempered powers Refine at length, and every passion wears A chaster, milder, more attractive mien. But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze
On Nature's form where, negligent of all These lesser graces, she assumes the part Of that Eternal Majesty that weighed The world's foundations, if to these the mind Exalts her daring eye; then mightier far
Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms Of servile custom cramp her generous powers? Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear? Lo! she appeals to Nature, to the winds And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course, The elements and seasons: all declare For what th' Eternal Maker has ordained The powers of man: we feel within ourselves His energy divine: he tells the heart He meant, he made us, to behold and love What he beholds and loves, the general orb Of life and being; to be great like him, Beneficent and active. Thus the men
Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day, With his conceptions; act upon his plan; And form to his, the relish of their souls.
FROM THE ENTHUSIAST; OR, THE LOVER OF
Ye green-robed Dryads, oft at dusky eve
By wondering shepherds seen, to forests brown
To unfrequented meads, and pathless wilds,
Lead me from gardens decked with art's vain pomps. Can gilt alcoves, can marble-mimic gods, Parterres embroidered, obelisks, and urns Of high relief; can the long, spreading lake, Or vista lessening to the sight; can Stow,
With all her Attic fanes, such raptures raise, As the thrush-haunted copse, where lightly leaps The fearful fawn the rustling leaves along, And the brisk squirrel sports from bough to bough, While from an hollow oak, whose naked roots O'erhang a pensive rill, the busy bees
Hum drowsy lullabies? The bards of old,
Fair Nature's friends, sought such retreats, to charm Sweet Echo with their songs; oft too they met In summer evenings, near sequestered bowers, Or mountain nymph, or Muse, and eager learnt The moral strains she taught to mend mankind.
Rich in her weeping country's spoils, Versailles May boast a thousand fountains, that can cast The tortured waters to the distant heavens: Yet let me choose some pine-topped precipice Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream, Like Anio, tumbling roars; or some bleak heath, Where straggling stands the mournful juniper, Or yew-tree scathed; while in clear prospect round From the grove's bosom spires emerge, and smoke In bluish wreaths ascends, ripe harvests wave, Low, lonely cottages, and ruined tops
Of Gothic battlements appear, and streams Beneath the sunbeams twinkle.
Happy the first of men, ere yet confined To smoky cities; who in sheltering groves,
Warm caves, and deep-sunk valleys lived and loved, By cares unwounded; what the sun and showers, And genial earth untillaged, could produce, They gathered grateful, or the acorn brown
Or blushing berry; by the liquid lapse
Of murmuring waters called to slake their thirst,
Or with fair nymphs their sun-brown limbs to bathe; With nymphs who fondly clasped their favourite youths, Unawed by shame, beneath the beechen shade,
Nor wiles nor artificial coyness knew.
Then doors and walls were not; the melting maid
Nor frown of parents feared, nor husband's threats;
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